One day a young muezzin with an awful voice was trying to chant the prayers’ call from the tiny balcony located at the very top of the minaret. He was wailing and shrieking so badly that it didn’t sound like the invitation to the prayer at all. Nasreddin Hodja heard the novice muezzin’s shrills and shouted to him from the bottom of the mosque:
“Son, we hear your cries for help and we do want to liberate you from there, but you have climbed up such a branchless tree that I don’t know how we can rescue you!”
© 2001 Lale Eskicioglu